Modular hardware and software integration for environmental sensor devices

Abstract

An apparatus includes a housing enclosing a microcontroller and multiple sensors. The microcontroller automatically detects a system status of the apparatus and selects at least one of a network interface from a set of network interfaces or a communications protocol from a set of communications protocols, based on the system status. The microcontroller also receives measurements from each of the sensors. In response to detecting an anomaly among the measurements, an anomaly message is generated and broadcast to at least one peer compute device via the selected at least one of the network interface or the communications protocol, and a signal representing the measurements is generated and wirelessly transmitted to a remote compute device. In response to not detecting an anomaly among the plurality of measurements, a signal representing the plurality of measurements is generated and wirelessly sent to the remote compute device.

The invention claimed is: 
     
       1. An apparatus, comprising:
 a housing; 
 a microcontroller disposed within the housing, the microcontroller including a processor and a memory operatively coupled to the processor; and 
 a plurality of sensors disposed within the housing; 
 the memory storing instructions to cause the processor to:
 automatically detect a system status of the apparatus, 
 select at least one of a network interface from a plurality of network interfaces or a communications protocol from a plurality of communications protocols, based on the system status, 
 receive a representation of a measurement from each sensor of at least a subset of sensors from the plurality of sensors, collectively defining a plurality of measurements, 
 in response to detecting an anomaly among the plurality of measurements:
 generate a message indicating the anomaly, for transmission to at least one peer compute device; 
 cause the message to be broadcast to the at least one peer compute device via the selected at least one of the network interface or the communications protocol; and 
 generate a signal representing the plurality of measurements to be sent, via a wireless network, to a remote compute device, and 
 
 in response to not detecting an anomaly among the plurality of measurements:
 generate a signal representing the plurality of measurements to be sent, via the wireless network, to the remote compute device. 
 
 
 
     
     
       2. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of network interfaces includes at least one of WiFi®, Bluetooth®, Long Range (LoRa) radio, or cellular. 
     
     
       3. The apparatus of  claim 1 , further comprising a sensor interface disposed within the housing, the sensor interface including a plurality of attachment ports, each sensor from the plurality of sensors being attached to an attachment port from the plurality of attachment ports of the sensor interface. 
     
     
       4. The apparatus of  claim 1 , further comprising a sensor interface disposed within the housing, the sensor interface including a plurality of data lines, each data line from the plurality of data lines being configured for a different communications protocol from the plurality of communications protocols. 
     
     
       5. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein each communications protocol from the plurality of communications protocols is a serial communications protocol. 
     
     
       6. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of communications protocols includes at least two of an Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) protocol, a Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter (UART) protocol, or a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) protocol. 
     
     
       7. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to:
 predict a time interval during which the wireless network will be offline; 
 cache the plurality of measurements at a first time preceding an end of the time interval; and 
 send the signal representing the plurality of measurements to the remote compute device at a second time after the time interval. 
 
     
     
       8. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to wake at least one sensor from the plurality of sensors based on a calendar stored in the memory, prior to the receiving the representation of the measurement from the at least one sensor from the plurality of sensors. 
     
     
       9. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to:
 receive, from the peer compute device, a signal representing a notification of a critical event; and 
 modify a scheduled task based on the notification of the critical event. 
 
     
     
       10. The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein the instructions to modify the scheduled task include instructions to increase a priority of a specified sensor from the plurality of sensors such that the specified sensor is more frequently monitored. 
     
     
       11. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to:
 assign a priority, from a plurality of priorities, to each sensor from the at least a subset of sensors from the plurality of sensors, each priority from the plurality of priorities being assigned based on at least one of: a contaminant level, a contaminant presence, a sensor status, or a measurement level; and 
 monitor activity of each sensor from the at least a subset of sensors from the plurality of sensors based on the plurality of priorities. 
 
     
     
       12. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions to select the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces include instructions to select the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces further based on at least one of: a predefined application, a power availability, or a predefined battery life. 
     
     
       13. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions to select the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces include instructions to select the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces in response to at least one of: a system boot-up, a network operation, or detection of a failure of a network interface from the plurality of network interfaces. 
     
     
       14. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions to select the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces include instructions to select the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces in response to at least one of: an indication of a critical battery condition, detection of removal of the battery, detection of connection to an alternating current (AC) power source, detection of motion, detection of a physical interaction with the apparatus, or receipt of a user command. 
     
     
       15. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions to select the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces include instructions to sequentially evaluate each network interface from the plurality of network interfaces until a first acceptable network interface from the plurality of network interfaces is identified. 
     
     
       16. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to:
 receive a firmware update image from an originator; 
 cause storage of the firmware update image in the memory; 
 receive a checksum associated with the firmware update image; 
 compute the checksum based on the firmware update image; 
 in response to successful validation of the computed checksum, load the firmware update image from the memory to an upgrade disk partition of the apparatus. 
 
     
     
       17. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to:
 send the signal representing the plurality of measurements, via the wireless network, to the remote compute device using a multicast uplink. 
 
     
     
       18. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to:
 receive a signal representing an update message, the update message including an indication of a network interface from the plurality of network interfaces, an identifier of a sender compute device, an indication of a listening time period, and a number of data blocks of a plurality of data blocks to be updated. 
 
     
     
       19. The apparatus of  claim 18 , wherein the memory further stores instructions to cause the processor to:
 receive each data block from the plurality of data blocks, during the listening time period, via one of: block-by-block transmission or multicast transmission. 
 
     
     
       20. A method, comprising:
 automatically detecting, via a processor, a system status of an apparatus including a microcontroller and a plurality of sensors disposed within a housing, 
 selecting, via the processor, at least one of a network interface from a plurality of network interfaces or a communications protocol from a plurality of communications protocols, based on the system status and at least one of: a predefined application, a power availability, or a predefined battery life, 
 receiving, via the processor, a representation of a measurement from each sensor of at least a subset of sensors from the plurality of sensors, collectively defining a plurality of measurements, 
 in response to detecting an anomaly among the plurality of measurements:
 generating, via the processor, a message indicating the anomaly, for transmission to at least one peer compute device; 
 causing the message to be broadcast to the at least one peer compute device via the selected at least one of the network interface or the communications protocol; and 
 generating, via the processor, a signal representing the plurality of measurements to be sent, via a wireless network, to a remote compute device, and 
 
 in response to not detecting an anomaly among the plurality of measurements:
 generating, via the processor, a signal representing the plurality of measurements to be sent, via the wireless network, to the remote compute device. 
 
 
     
     
       21. The method of  claim 20 , wherein the selecting the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces is performed in response to at least one of: a system boot-up, a network operation, or detection of a failure of a network interface from the plurality of network interfaces. 
     
     
       22. The method of  claim 20 , wherein the selecting the network interface from the plurality of network interfaces is performed in response to at least one of: an indication of a critical battery condition, detection of removal of the battery, detection of connection to an alternating current (AC) power source, detection of motion, detection of a physical interaction with the apparatus, or receipt of a user command.